Dabum,
"Most insurance policies don't cover for losses incurred during a time of war."
It's unlikely that political statements regarding the acts committed in NY and DC will affect the legal obligations of the parties. Although the pols and the papers said, "WAR!" the acts themselves were quintessential terrorist attacks. And, for every time someone said "war," he said "terror" and "terrorism" 10 times.
Fast Eddy,
I couldn't agree with you more as to GWB's limitations as a public speaker and conveyor of messages. He should be limited to speaking from prepared texts, with short sentences and, perhaps, only mono- and bi-syllabic words. His tendency to say "I" when he should say "we" and "my" when he should say "our" is depressing. But worst of all, he is all too prone to say "smoke them out," "get 'em running," "retaliation," "punishment," and now "dead or alive," when what he should be focussing on is the war effort and, finally, a victory over terrorism and a just and lasting peace for all the enemies of terrorism, many of them Islamic nations.
I'll repeat myself (why not?): when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, our blood lust ran extremely high and I'm sure we wanted to capture and disembowel each and every Japanese pilot and sailor, from admiral to swabee. That was the emotion. But what we needed to do, by whatever means we could, was defeat the enemy, achieve their unconditional surrender, and revitalize the Japanese people, who had also been a victim of their government. MacArthur refused to publicly embarass the Japanese emperor by taking his white horse and riding it down Hibiya-doori; he recognized that the emperor was the symbolic soul and spirit of the Japanese people and that this soul and spirit needed to be used to help deffeat the horrors of the past (even though it was clear that Hirohito had not been the passive player in Japanese militarism that was presented publicly to the West). Tojo was executed, and Hirohito lived on in imperial splendor. It wasn't "fair," but it was the right result.
What does that have to do with our victory over terrorist Islam? Everything. Our blood lust is high now and we wish to search out and kill every Islamic terrorist (and on the way to doing that accept high levels of their "collateral damage"). I don't care if, after this campaign and a destruction of the Islamic terrorist movement, the real mastermind of these attacks lives out his life on a parched piece of land in Afghanistan, so long as we have a victory over the enemy. Retaliation, retribution? That's a personal response. Victory? That's the business goal we're after.
They're willing to die for the movement; I want to kill the movement.
Again, in the Godfather, Michael suggests killing the McCluskey and Sollozzo and Sonny thinks he's just having a hothead reaction against the attack on Vito and McCluskey's breaking of his (Michael's) jaw. No, Michael says, this isn't personal, it's just business. |
